The Project for Excellence in Journalism finds that "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" is no less a news show than any other crummy cable-news show out there

Jon Stewart has always insisted that "The Daily Show" is not a news program, but
a new study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, after following the show for all of 2007, has decided it's no more a news program than any other news program on the air. Which either means Stewart is wrong, or that Stewart is right and there're no news shows anywhere on TV.

I won't bore you with the details of the study, but the Project for Excellence in Journalism compared Stewart's show to the traditional news media's coverage of sundry issues, and found:

* "When Americans last year were asked to name the journalist they most admired, showing up at No. 4 on the list was a comedian. Jon Stewart, host of 'The Daily Show' on Comedy Central and former master of ceremonies at Academy Award shows, tied in the rankings with anchormen Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and cable host Anderson Cooper."

* "In its use of news video, The Daily Show is often quite documentary, culling through archives to show official hypocrisy, abuse of language, and spin. ... In its choice of topics, its use of news footage to deconstruct the manipulations by public figures and its tendency toward pointed satire over playing just for laughs, The Daily Show performs a function that is close to journalistic in nature--getting people to think critically about the public square."

* "'The Daily Show' not only assumes, but even requires, previous and significant knowledge of the news on the part of viewers if they want to get the joke. ... The survey also suggests 'Daily Show' viewers are highly informed, an indication that 'The Daily Show' is not their lone source of news. Regular viewers of 'The Daily Show' and 'The Colbert Report' were most likely to score in the highest percentile on knowledge of current affairs."

* "The presidential campaign and the policy debate about the war in Iraq, together added up to a quarter of the time spent on 'The Daily Show' (26%) for the year (2007, remember). This was significantly more than in the mainstream press, where the two stories commanded 18% in the same time period. ... Washington-related pieces, U.S. foreign affairs (especially the Bush Administration's Iraq war policy), and general politics accounted for 47% of the show's airtime in 2007. In that regard, by the numbers The Daily Show closely resembles in its topic agenda the news menu of many cable 'news' shows."

* "'The Daily Show' is clearly impacting American dialogue. ... Some of the show's sway as an information source could also come from language, and the sense that it is more candid, and thus somehow closer to one sense of accuracy than the more hidebound traditional media. 'My students tell me they read the news for facts, but they watch Jon Stewart for the truth,' Professor Steve Lacy of Michigan State University has observed."

Hence, PEJ's study concluded: "In its subject matter, 'The Daily Show' is indeed journalistic. Its topic agenda is highly focused on the public square, on issues of significance, particularly those focused around Washington. Its agenda is not dissimilar, indeed, from other cable talk shows. The language is even more blunt, and its point often more direct. 'The Daily Show' is no doubt entertainment, but it is entertainment, measurably, with a substantive point. It is, in its own way, another kind of No Spin Zone."

Bill O'Reilly, who dismisses "Daily Show" viewers as "pot-smokers," no doubt will love being compared to Stewart. He should be that talented.